Day 25 Never ending Kindness
SYNOPSIS: Nothing much happened today. This is about ever friendly people, the experience of getting a SIM card in Syria and censorship at the Internet.HOW I SPENT A RAINY DAY IN DEIR EZ ZOORI got used to showing my passport in order to board a bus, to the man at the Internet – yes, no Internet use without your passport on record – and to the hotel receptionist. But today, I tried to get a SIM card for my world phone and it got much worse than showing my passport...I took a phone along for emergencies – thanks, Maria! It works anywhere in the world for $4 per minute. Obviously not a phone you would use to make regular phone calls. But my son assured me that in each of the countries I would be traveling, I could get a local SIM card and I would be connected. In Lebanon, they took one look at my phone and sent me away. I did not need a phone, so I just accepted that and due to the language barrier never found out why.In Syria, I will be heading towards Aleppo soon and there is a hotel and a guide and an acquaintance I have made contact with ahead of time. It would be nice to have a mobile phone to make arrangements. So, I figured today was the day to catch up on errands. It was a rainy, gray day, and it had been 10 days since the last “down” day. So, I took care of “stuff” today. First, one of my pants needed fixing. It is such a cool thing to have a tailor at every corner. The first one did not have the materials, but the second did the job on the spot: $1.I had my shoes shined. The guy who did this seemed to be deformed. His body was disproportional. Perhaps, he had polio as a child. But this job, sitting low, was perfect for him. Either way, it is strange for me to have someone shine my shoes. These are things I am used to doing myself. But here, I give somebody a job. After all those ruins, my clunkers needed it. The shoe job cost $2. By the way, these shoes are holding up beautifully! If you read the blog from the beginning, you may remember that I bought these shoes specifically for this trip – always a bad idea to do this last minute, but I got lucky. It feels like butter to walk in them day after day. I can easily slip in and out at any mosque I am visiting and since they are way large, they are holding heavy duty orthopedic inserts that really help my feet to survive. This is one thing every traveler knows: If your shoes are bad, your trip is just about ruined.Then off to look for budget hotels. Well… this time I am caving in and I will be staying where I am. I found three budget hotels. The difference is that unlike Damascus or Palmyra, Deir Ez Zoor is not a tourist but a gas and oil town. Recent discoveries have brought hundreds of migrant workers to town who rent rooms by the month if not a whole season. I could have found a room for less than I am paying now, but I would have been the only female and the only foreigners surrounded by male petrol workers. I am sure I would have provided great entertainment for them again, but I am done for a while with that. I just so love my room with all the wonderful things in it and I will enjoy it for three more days, celebrating the ¼ mark of this trip! Yes, it’s been 25 days out of 101. How time flies when you are having fun! JI also took care of my flight from Damascus to Dubai. I felt really annoyed by the fact that I had to commit to a day when to fly. I so enjoy not to plan in advance. I have a general direction in mind. I have sights I want to visit, but today, for example, could not be planned. It just happened the way it did. And that is good. But OK, there will be a week when I will have to do a lot of flying and I will have to keep a schedule. What can I do?But boy, are things different here. I booked a flight to Dubai and wanted to pay with my credit card. No. Only cash. For a flight? I could not believe it. No CC payments for an international flight. OK, I paid cash. I asked about changing my reservation and the fees involved, and I was told – I hope this is true and not another communication error - that literally until an hour before the flight I can cancel my reservation without penalty! Who has ever heard of such a thing? It’s great, but what a different world! No wonder the guy who tried to blow up the plane bound for Detroit paid his ticket in cash. That’s how it’s done around here. So, theoretically, I don’t have to commit to a day. Except that this flight only comes around once a week. All the other flights I saw had awful times – like leaving Damascus at 11 PM in order to arrive at Dubai around 3 AM. Yes, that’s just what my host family there would love – come to the airport at 3 AM in the morning to pick me up! So I am stuck with this flight either way.From there I headed to the Internet to post yesterday’s report. Ever since Damascus I have had trouble to get into my blog. First, I thought it was the internet connection. Then I thought it was the weather. Then bad luck. But now I am convinced that it is censorship. I had heard that in Iran blogs are banned. Syria is not that far away; perhaps they are blocked here, too? The California travelers noted that their Facebook no longer is accessible... My internet site prominently is called ET’s Blog… What a stupid thing of me to do. I got into everything online with my name on as well as into various Google sites predicting the weather, etc. I tried it all. But whenever I wanted to open my blog I got an error message, it timed out, or nothing happened at all… Yesterday, I put 45 minutes into this. Today, 30. I can’t keep doing this. I am just running my head against a brick wall.I am grateful to my son who has been helping to post my reports for now. Hey, Corey, is anything like this in your job description? If not, I think it should be. Can you learn how to do this, too? I may have to rely from here on out on email to submit reports and images. Posting does not take that much, but it should be done regularly. I don’t want to burden just one of you. But perhaps, the task can be shouldered by the two of you?This was a bit of a reality check. On the surface things are still so easy going here…And finally, I tackled the phone issue. There are phone stores here more than anyone knows what to do with. So, randomly, I walked into the first one. An older guy – at the phone – just waved his hands hysterically in rejection seeing my phone (or seeing me and my phone?). So I proceeded to the next store. They shook their head but took me to the next store. They also shook their head and sent a young boy with me for a 10 minute walk to what looked like a big, central phone office. But it was closed. Thank you very much. I kept strolling the souq – a very non-touristy market with everything you can imagine from household wares to food and repair shops of all sorts.Then I tried again: I walked into a phone shop and they shook their head but took me to the next shop. Here is where it got interesting. The guy asked for my passport and then… fingerprinted me! What? Then he made a couple of phone calls and… sent me away to the next shop. Late at night I arrived at the final shop where I spent about one hour: First passport again. Then he wanted to sent a boy away with my passport to have it photocopied while I wait – no way. I walked with the kid and we had my passport copied. Then he filled out an endless questionnaire and again, fingerprinted me. I got a historical photo of that! After several phone calls to “bigger offices” as he put it, he finally issued me a SIM card. Then he put it into my phone and it failed! Every test call he made failed. He could call my phone, but I could not call out. He tried the card in one of his phones and it worked. His explanation: My phone is a Motorola which is a company associated with Israel. Nothing made in Israel works in Syria… I have no idea where Motorola is located, but is that even possible? Anyone out there with an idea, please let me know. Of course, he wanted me to pay for the SIM card even though it is completely useless to me unless I purchase a phone in addition. After all his work, how could I not pay him? What a mess!The phone man was quite distraught about us parting on such dissatisfactory terms, so he insisted that I stayed to drink tea with him. A gesture of friendship, and I did. He assured me that if I needed any help calling anyone I should just come to him. And that brings me to the theme of the day. The entire day was permeated with people who went out of their way being helpful. First, there was Nasser with his 5 year old son Ahmed, who was on his way to the doctor. But when he saw me looking lost, he insisted on walking with me to all the hotels and negotiating and translating the situation for me. He invited me to stay at his house with his wife and 5 children. He was sincere and I know I would have been safe. But I declined. I know I disappointed him. I looked at a bakery and a bystander bought me a piece of sweets and insisted I try it at his expense. Another store owner practically ran after me to give me a gift of earrings. And many of those phone store owners sent somebody along to get me to the next place. Most of these encounters only lasted for 2-3 minutes. I was never harassed or followed, just overwhelmed with gifts and gestures of friendship and an eagerness to be helpful that is unknown to us in the West. I could have been drinking tea with dozens of people. It is hard for me to reject most of these offers as they are so well intended. I do it with a big smile and profuse outpourings of gratitude and hope that I don’t offend anyone.And that’s how a rainy day turned into an interesting experience.Good night.